Laura, wearing some kind of harem costume, suggests, “Maybe our killer has bagged his limit. There won’t be anymore victims.”

Okay, then. Let’s just put all this unpleasantness behind us an enjoy the rest of the weekend. But Steele is not convinced.

“There should be at least one more.”

Laura wants to know how he’s so certain.
“Because I know who it should be.”
“Al’ right, I’ll bite.” Oh, NOW she’s in the mood? That’s a little kinky, Laura. Turns out she only wants to know who he’s talking about.

“You.”

Well, then. Just because she won’t sleep with you is no reason to want her dead, Steele. Don’t be petty.

Steele explains himself. “And Then There Were None.”

“Barry Fitzgerald and Walter Huston faked Fitzgerald’s death. With everyone believing that he was just another victim, he was free to search for the killer.”

If Laura expects Steele to bone up on detective techniques, she might at least familiarize herself with HIS area of expertise. Fair is fair.

But Laura doesn’t seem to see the point. “Believe me, Laura, it will work” Steele calls after her.

“When Dr. Arthur Bellows pronounces you dead, who’ll question it?”

“With everyone downstairs, you’ll be free to go through their rooms and search for evidence.”

Not getting a response, he stoops to peeping. Oh, Mr. Steele.

Disappointed, I am.

“You’ll be able to- watch their every move without them knowing it,” he as, just as she opens the door.
“Lose something?” she asks.

Yes. I believe that would be his dignity.

“Uh … cufflink,” he confabulates. (You can usually come up with something better than that, Mr. Steele!) Oh, here it is.” Fortunately, Detective Steele doesn’t want to see evidence. Is she slipping, or feeling magnanimous. The latter, apparently.
“Your plan is brilliant,” she concedes.
“Of course it is. It’s from movie.”

Duh.

“Except for one flaw.”
If you mean that you can’t be killed again, since you’re already a fashion fatality, I’m inclined to agree, Laura.

“Flaw?”
“The killer will know he or she didn’t kill me.”
Look at that bouncy hair.

Just look at it!

“Hmm. THAT’S why it worked in the movie,” Steele remembers. “Barry Fitzgerald was the killer.”
Wait.

Father FitzGibbon from “Going My Way” is a killer? Does Bing Crosby know?

However, Laura has a refinement to the plan. “Unless-”
“… my death is an accident.”
Mr. Steele is impressed with her ingenuity. At least, I think it’s her ingenuity he’s impressed by.

“Laura, you’ve done it again,” he gushes.

“Saved the day with your analytical approach …”

“… your inspired inventiveness…”

Apparently Mr. Steele’s admiration for Laura has exhausted him.

“What say we take a little rest before we launch into this strenuous plan of yours?”

She’s not tired, though.

“Perfect. Neither am I.”
Side note: Another sign of how things have changed in the 30-odd years since Steele aired. I’m pretty sure this little comedy bit of Mr. Steele trying to coerce Laura into having sex with him wouldn’t fly in 2015.

Back from vacation! Meanwhile, Mr. Steele and Laura’s not-s0-romantic getaway seems to go on and on …

We see Mr. Steele manning a video camera. What kinky business is this, sir?

The camera pans back to reveal Laura’s reflection in the mirror, rifling a closet. The trail of feathers reveals that they are in the late Miss May’s room. Wait. Was the camera there when they discovered the body? If so, might they not check the video footage to see if the murder was recorded?

Steele is musing on the case. “More than one killer. “Do you think that’s possible?” he asks.

“Whoever it is has a certain poetic bent,” Laura responds.Steele doesn’t get it; Laura expounds.

“Well, Ambrose Blinn was accused of publishing garbage, and he was choked to death with it,” Laura explained.

“And Cindi Sykes, who had an irritating propensity for giggling…” Steele jumps in, catching the drift.

“…giggled herself to death,” Laura concludes.

“Any candidates?” Steele inquires.

Laura notes that none of the guests seem overly fond of their host.

“That might account for Blinn’s death, but what about Cindi?” Steele asks. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but she seemed far too vacuous to do anything that might drive someone to murder.”

Laura has an answer for that.

“She did replace Randi in Blinn’s affections.”

Steele isn’t convinced.

“Yes, but you should have heard the two of them over dinner, exchanging anecdotes over Blinn’s sexual preferences like so many recipes,” Steele says with a tone of distaste.

Hm. It seems a life of hedonism isn’t as appealing to Mr. Steele as he perhaps anticipated.

“Are you familiar with the honey thing?” he asks Laura.

At Laura’s blank look, he elaborates.

“Apparently you heat a bowl of honey …”

“… then take half a pound of shredded walnuts…”

Steele’s recipe recitation is interrupted by a piercing scream.

The detectives race from the scene of one crime to what is presumably the scene of another …

As they race toward the piercing shriek, we again observe the Breck bounce in Laura’s luscious tresses.

The Breck Bounce was supposedly caused by a mysterious substance called Sartron that made Breck conditioner extraordinary. Strangely, I can’t find evidence of any ingredient called Sartron in a Google search. Hmmmm.

Although Steele was in the lead in the previous frame, we find Laura well ahead of him on the way down the stairs. We hear shouting and shrieking in the background.

At last they come upon the scene, finding Silent Partner and Mrs. Roper assaulting each other with blunt objects.

“Help me! He’s trying to kill me!” Randi is screaming. “He came at me with that pool cue!”

Silent Partner says she’s crazy. He claims she came at HIM with a poker.

“LIAR!”
“Slut!”

Yes, but how do you REALLY feel?

Randi prepares to deal a death blow. “Pornographer!”
“You should know. You were my biggest star.”

Well! Things grow more sordid by the minute!

Laura’s had enough. She wrestles the weapon away from Randi. Look how lush and shiny Laura’s hair is. That Sartron stuff really works!

“A little warm for a fire, Miss Russell,” she quips.

“Ask him what he was doing in here, going through Ambrose’s desk,” Randi suggests.

Silent Partner explains that he put up the green to back these clubs (you mean there’s more than one?). “We were supposed to be partners, 50-50. Only Ambrose forgot how to add when it came to my share! So I wanted to see just how much he snookered me out of!”

Ha! I knew vegetables were bad for you!
Madeline has her doubts. She also has her booze. “Are you sure?”
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Steele assures her. “The man’s mouth was a veritible salad of death. Believe me, it wasn’t a very appetizing sight.”

Watch for the exciting Kickstarter campaign for next year’s most terrifying thriller, “Fruit Salad of Death!”

Laura adds some grisly details: “And from the appearance of the body, he’d been dead several days.”

“Then he couldn’t have greeted us last night from his bedroom, could he?” Feldman points out.

Steele decides it’s time to get up close and personal with his former patient. “Miss Russell, refresh my memory. When exactly did I …”
“… er …

And now they’re playing charades, it seems.

“Two years ago,” she says. She laughs. “I’m really very naughty.”

I’m stunned. So is Steele.

“Your personal life is your own,” Mr. Steele assures her.
“No, no. I mean, Dr. Harvey Bernbaum was supposed to do the operation, but he got in a fender bender
on the way to the hospital.”

Since I was all prepped and everything, he asked if you could take over for him. So you probably never even knew my name.”

Something tells me a lot of the gentlemen Randi interacts with never bother to learn her name.

Randi seems to have a special attachment to her doctor. I believe this is called “transference.” Or maybe “promiscuity.”

“So we’ve never actually met before, except in the operating room,” she explains.

“And me behind a surgical mask.” Randi seems eagers to find out what’s behind Steele’s mask clothing.
“When I came to, there was Dr. Bernbaum. And as soon as I got out of the hospital, I went straight to Switzerland …”

NOTE: Sorry my posts have been so sporadic. Technology issues. Anyway, we last left Mr. Steele performing an ad-hoc post-mortem on Miss May, diagnosing a fatal case of the giggles.

We now join the crowd apparently some time later. Madeline is boozing again. Hey, it’s 5:00 somewhere.

She wants to know how someone can be tickled to death. I want to know why she’s wearing that godawful caftan.

Steele, having secured the murder weapon as a fetching accessory to his daytime ensemble, seems distracted. “Hmm?”

“How? How.”

“I’m afraid the explanation is far too technical for you laymen,” he says.

Ugh. Why do doctors always act like they know everything.

Okay, then.

Nevertheless, our man Feldman isn’t intimidated. He has an explanation of his own!

“I remember my brother telling me that laughter temporarily cuts off the air supply to the lungs,” Feldman offers, as Steele continues his little tap dance.

.

“Therefore, prolonged laughter could, conceiveably, induce a form of asphixiation.”

“Am I substantially correct, Doctor?”

That’s what I figured.

However, Dr. Bellowsteele is prepared to bluff.

“I sometimes wish that we gentlemen of the medical profession were half as concise as you gentlemen of the bar.”

Indeed. Lawyers are known for their brevity.

Squeee! Feldman got a compliment! Who da man?

HE da man!

Meanwhile, back to the crime …

“Tickled to death,” Randi notes. “And I always thought that was just something you said when you were happy.”

Steele is curiously amused by this statement. He begins to explain how he arrived at the death-by-chuckles explanation. “I heard Mr. Blinn and Miss Sikes around three this morning.”

“Found myself in the throes of …” Careful, doc. Nurse Groggins looks a little testy this morning. Presumably because she’s realized how ridiculous her jumpsuit is.

“Some back problems.”

Well played, sir.

“Attempted to walk off the excruciating pain,” he continues under Laura’s watchful eye.

“Miss Sikes was giggling her way to ecstasy.”

“Are you saying it was an accident, doctor?” Feldman asks.

Mr. Steele is prepared to expound on his theory. “In the heat of passion, in the grip of heavenly transport, perhaps Mr. Blinn simply got carried away and didn’t know what he was doing – or when to stop.”

Laura seems a little uncomfortable back there. I wonder why?

“Ambrose Blinn is a sadistic FREAK,” Madeline says. Perhaps. But I think we can assume anyone who would wear that outfit is a MASOchistic freak, Madge.

“Well, he likes to inflict pain under the guise of pleasure,” Feldman agrees.

Um … and you know that how?

“This is just the sort of thing he’d come up with,” Randi affirms.

Perhaps because she’s had NO sadistic fun this weekend, Laura has had enough of this guessing game.

“I think we should find our host,” she announces.

“Put the question of what happened to him.”

Feldman is eager. “Good. Let’s split up.”

“It’ll be more efficient that way. Some of us search the grounds, others take the house.”

Suddenly the Silent Partner appears and boorishly pushes his way to the front of the line. Feldman continues to holler at Ambrose, demanding to know what he and Cindi are doing in there. (Didn’t he read the brochure?)

“Perhaps they overslept,” Mr. Steele offers. “They were up rather late last night.”

“

Silent Partner silently kicks open the doors. Now THERE’S a man of action!

The party enters the room and find …

… the nekkid corpse of Miss May, with plumage strategically arranged.

“She’s dead,” Randi declares astutely. (Maybe Laura should hire her for the agency.)